Marc Prensky states in his article ‘Digital natives and Digital immigrants’ that “Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach” (Prensky, 2008). Learning in the 21st century is obviously going to be very different through the generations and from here on in advance so quickly, that we as society will be unable to keep up if we don’t become lifelong learners ourselves.
On this journey through Managing E-Learning, my first contemplation was, “Wow this is easy, I already know how to use the internet and computer”. While slowing sifting through the learning activities of the course modules I slowly realised E-learning is a great support to enhance learning especially with the quantity of digital tools now obtainable for online users, some being quite effortless and others rather intricate. The tools examined were for all types of learners and could be incorporated into many activities within the classroom.
Personally I thought that the online quiz of learning styles is a fantastic tool to use at the beginning of the school year, it not only gets the students using ICT’s, but it also enables the teacher to understand the ways in which each child learns, and with the online comparison to students around the country of similar age, what their learning styles are also. As stated previously in the blog Sunday the 18th of July, 2010, ‘Everyone is different in so many ways, when regarding how we learn. It is a good idea to firstly find out as much as possible about the learners in your classroom, before embarking on each learning journey. There are many ways that you can find out the best possible attributes of each learner, and how they learn best, through which type of learning understanding, whether it’s through visual, auditory, verbal, logical, social, physical, intrapersonal etc..’. Incorporating these learning styles into the learning theories of the behaviourist, cognitivist and constructivist approaches to learning, enables a wholistic understanding of not only the child as an individual, but the class collectively.
This online blog in particular is an incredible way of allowing the learner to voice their own thoughts and feelings whilst discovering the intricate world of the internet and the embedded digital tools for learning. I found myself in agreement with other students completing the course regarding the use of Blog’s, wiki’s and WebPages for individual and collaborative learning within the classroom. By incorporating these communicative assessment tools through digital exploration, it brings a definitive connectedness to the world for students, allows for integrated and problem based curriculum to be implemented through technology. By connectedness, I mean the connection between the learner, education and wanting to be involved with each learning step along the way.
“Today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV). Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives.” (Prensky, 2008)
So in other words, giving a child a book on the weather and saying ‘learn all about it, I will test you next week’, will not be sufficient. Connectedness involves finding out what the learner wants and how they best learn through multiple intelligence tests, designing an entire unit of work making sure that each learning style has been taken into account whether visual, auditory, kinaesthetic or physical learner, and also taking into account the digital natives and what ICT’s have been embedded into the learning, which is what they relate to and feel connected to.
For instance, if the class unit of work was ‘weather’, each class member could create a wiki page in groups, of their choice of natural extreme weather and collectively as a group, elaborate together and input information on the topic into the wiki, whilst writing an online journal of their journey into their own blog, which encourages independent study. Concept and mind maps could be created to add to the Wiki and blogs, RSS feeds could be established by the teacher and students to monitor what input has been added to the pages. Then as a group the children could create a presentation to be viewed on smart board at the end of the unit, to showcase the group work that has been created. The presentation could either be created on PowerPoint or for more advanced users – PREZI then shown in class for assessment.
What is most important is maintaining inclusivity of each child, be understanding of their needs in regards to skill of each digital tool, especially ESL and indigenous students, to incorporate topics that relate to them and as such, be incorporated into the task. Incorporating all of these fantastic digital tools into learning creates a deeper knowledge of any task which can be elaborated on in many digital ways to enable a higher order of thinking for each child, which gives a problematic approach to learning and increases their metacognition by getting them thinking.
I personally found most of the task a challange, and they challanged my metacognition which got me thinking about the bigger world, the future, and how lucky we are to have what we have. However worthwhile to each and every one of us, our children are most lucky in what they will receive. As shown in the above shown You tube clip ' The great divide', we are lucky to have what we have, as other nations are not so lucky. We should make the most of our resources to the best of our ability and be thankful to have such easily accessible information at our fingertips with Personal computers, and the knowledge we have of ICT's, let hope we all work together to allow the future generations be the best that they can be and show our older generations that they are not the 'me' generation that they are made out to be.
References:
Kearsley, G. & Shneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. [electronic resource].Retrieved August 17, 2010, from
http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm
Lynch, D. (1998), The learning design process. In Smith, R. and Lynch, D. (2006), The Rise of the Learning Manager. Frenchs Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearson Education Australia.
n/a. (2010, August). List of LMS Learning Management Systems. Retrieved August 12th, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_learning_management_systems
O'Connell, J. (2006). Engaging the Google Generation Through Web 2.0: Part 1. In, Scan, 25 (3), pp. 46-50
Prensky, M. (2008). marcprensky.com. Retrieved August 21st, 2010, from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
Queensland Studies Authority. (2009) Early Years Curriculum Guidelines. Springhill, Qld.: Queenland Studies Authority. In. Queensland Studies Authority. (2009) P-12 Assessment policy. Brisbane, Qld.: Author. Retrieved August 1st, 2010, from
http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/learning/981.html
Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning. [Electronic Resource] Retrieved August, 2010, from
http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm
The Department of Education Queensland. (1995). Guidelines for the use of computers in learning. Brisbane: Department of Education
The Department of Education Queensland. (2002). Literate futures: New times, new literacies. Brisbane: Department of Education
The State of Queensland (Department of education and Training). (2009) The learning place. In. The curriculum exchange resource centre: NetAlert. [Electronic Resource] Brisbane: Author. Retrieved August 1st, 2010 from,
http://learningplace.eq.edu.au/cx/resources/item/website/ed4c3f76-3a11-cbac-ff44-e9904d57bbd6/1/ViewItem.jsp
Thomas, F. & Strachan, M. (2001). Internet projects for primary schools: Finding information. London: A & C Black Publishers Ltd.
Further reading:
n/a. (2010, August). List of LMS Learning Management Systems. Retrieved August 12th, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_learning_management_systems
Prensky, M. (2008). marcprensky.com. Retrieved August 21st, 2010, from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
Comments on blogs:
Rachel Leigh: Creating a Website - Weebly: "Justace18 said...
I agree Rachel, I found Weebly very easy to use and also due to the fact that there are many options for variety in the web page set up, not to mention easy organising onto the page, more so then a Blog or Wiki, I think that as a teaching tool, students would love using it.
Kerri =)
e-learningwendys: Digital Images: flickr - mobaphoto - picasa: "Hi Wendy,
I must say that I enjoyed reading your blog, you have a knack for writing. I agree with you in regards to ' It is up to the person who chooses to use their photos online', I think that is a very impoartant issues these days especially with online internet safety being so easily scrutinised. Also I think that the adolescents of today enjoy posting photos online that portray their image as being of a discrimating nature, and needs to be monitored by parents in order to maintain the purity of these children who are exposed way too early to things they should not be ! Although , as you stated previously, they enjoy doing it, having grown up in that particular digital society.
Cheers =)
Kerri"
August 26, 2010 11:09 PM"
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